Beyond the fact that some people just like to jump right in and play, right now the case isn't clear for most of the stock factions, although some factions, if I recall, have bonuses with costs that exceed your ability to completely recreate them as a custom faction (Tarth comes to mind, at least as of 1.6).

Understand,  the various civs will be getting significant overhauls in upcoming updates and expansions, with a focus on unique abilities and faction differentiation, so this may not be true of the game in the months to come.

Yeah that would of made making the Orcs green a lot easier.

Good idea riadsala, I agree.

Best regards,
Steven.

But not all. And the ones that are missing, Ind/Phil in particular are probably unbalanced.

Also, the trait combinations where more unbalanced in the vanilla game. Overtime they were tweaked, and evened out. I would imagine a similar strategy would work with Elemental. Concentrate on game balance/AI development for the preset/fluff races. As remember, the AI has to be taught how to play to the different strengths and weaknesses of the different factions.

As the game is polished, more love and attention can be given to the custom factions. And no doubt the community will create some anyway. But getting the basic races working (including AI) should be the priority.